If ramps allow accessibility to a larger number of people as opposed to stairs, then why are stairs more common than ramps in public buildings (or buildings in general)?
Comparing a reasonable angle ...

As part of our research in an HCI project, we need to track what users are drawing on pieces of paper in real time. Due to some requirements, we cannot replace the paper with anything digital. What we ...

For devices that run on a battery, the screen is the component that drains the the battery the most. So I began to wonder if there is an alternative.
Has someone ever tried another type of interface ...

A few months ago I wanted a new laptop, so I ordered it from a big brand considering its solid features (like core-i3, 4 gigs of RAM, etc.). The laptop is perfect and runs well, but it has a small but ...

So many basic discussions of affordances begin with the example of door knobs affording twisting. It seems to be the second example used in Norman's 1988 definition, even.
However a symmetric round ...

Our local public transportation system uses electronic cards (something like RFID technology) to validate rides. Users enter the vehicle and place their contactless card against a reader, and a beep ...

I noticed that elevator doors are always narrower than the compartment, so people get jammed up trying to exit.
Why don't they just design elevator doors so they are wide enough for everyone to exit ...

I was a little bit surprised to find that my Bench-branded 100% polyester jacket had a little zipperless back pocket just below the neck, especially since placing something like keys there would make ...

I recently criticized a sketch of a automobile instrument cluster concept that indicated speed with a bar gauge and a numeric readout. I and many others suggested that a dial speedometer was easier to ...

Typically one doesn't drive much faster than 80 MPH. Even in an emergency passing situation, it would be extremely rare to drive more than 100 MPH. In fact, as far as I know many cars have governors ...

Yesterday I saw an interesting idea:
What are some potential reasons why so few cables have a coil in their middle - like old telephone cables? I know that we don't want all cables to be like that, ...

Retractable pens typically have a rather noisy mechanism. Some users periodically start pressing the pen button frequently (while they're talking on the phone or while they're waiting for some result ...

I often hear complaints by users who are not satisfied by the wide-screen monitors and prefer traditional screen ratios of 4:3 and 5:4. Unfortunately, such monitors now are quite rare and the laptops ...

I've noticed that cars/automobiles manufactured for countries with right-hand traffic (where vehicles drive on the right hand side of the road) place the driver's seat on the left hand side of the car ...

If the elevator stops on a floor, opens the doors to let the passengers out, and hasn't received a command to go on another floor, why does it close its doors afterwards?
If the elevator is not on my ...

The toilet paper dispenser in a bathroom stall at work made me think of an interesting problem.
There are two rolls hooked up and ready for use at any time. As the rolls get smaller and smaller, the ...

In our homes we now have home appliances such as a dish washing machine, a microwave oven, a washing machine, a tumble drier. Every one of these appliances makes a little sound notification when it's ...

When you visit a urinal (so one for the gents), you’ll find that where urinals are arranged in groups of 3, the middle urinal and floor are typically cleaner than those to either side. This stems from ...

This is something which has been annoying me for a while now. It seems a simple question: what shape of toilet seat is nicer for the user?
However, I've asked around a bit and there's quite a lot of ...

I've been on a few flights recently, and idly listening to the captain talking to the passengers got me thinking:
The captain's world is very different from the passengers' world. The captain has to ...

Yesterday I was faced with the challenge of replacing the stock radio in my vehicle. The stock radio had broken, and it was time for a new one. As it is, building the proper wiring harness is already ...

I think many people are familiar with the situation of people waiting at the pedestrian crossing and repeatedly pressing (sometimes bashing) the button in the belief that it might somehow speed up the ...